DIVORCE is the only solution for Eastern Health and Healesville Hospital according to a surgeon who has been working at the hospital for more than 25 years.
Mr Richard Cade, who is employed by Eastern Health as one of their surgical directors, said the partners were not compatible.
“It was an arranged marriage by forces outside of any of the hospitals involved some years ago, and the partners are not mutually compatible,” said Mr Cade, who said he was speaking as a very loyal Eastern Health person.
“I don’t believe Healesville Hospital does anything for Eastern Health and I don’t believe Eastern Health provides anything significant for Healesville Hospital.”
Mr Cade spoke out last week as the Save Healesville Hospital (SHH) group and local GPs revealed changes to the Eastern Health payment structure for surgeons, anaesthetists and other specialists would undermine a campaign aimed at retaining surgery services at the hospital.
Healesville Hospital’s status as the only rural hospital in the Eastern Health network is at the crux of the problem and there is growing support to have the hospital cut free of Eastern Health and funded as an independent, community-run rural hospital.
The payment change means surgeons and anaesthetists working at Healesville will be paid on a sessional basis, rather than a fee for service, reportedly reducing their pay by more than 70 per cent.
Eastern Health has defended the move with Surgery Program Director Martin Smith saying it was standardising its payment model across its network. He also confirmed the move was outside the draft Strategic Clinical Service Plan that was currently under discussion and which was the catalyst for community outrage and the SHH campaign.
According to one GP who requested he not be named, it was a calculated move he said would strangle theatre services at Healesville.
“The end result of this is there is no incentive for specialists to come to Healesville and they are effectively strangling the service because they know the arrangement will be unacceptable to visiting specialists,” he said.
Mr Cade said while he would continue to work at Healesville, it was likely others would not.
“You’re not going to get people to travel an hour each way from Melbourne to do a session when they can do one at the local public hospital,” he said.
“I am not going – not because I believe the payment is reasonable, but because I have been going there for so long and have a great love of the place, but what it does mean is that there will be some visiting staff who won’t continue to go and if they continue with this sort of payment model, they would have great trouble replacing these people.”
Mr Cade said there was no question that the service provided at Healesville was efficient and professional, describing the nursing staff as ‘exemplary’, and confirmed claims that waiting lists were consistently shorter than metropolitan hospitals.
“I believe the only motive for Eastern Health to change the payment model is that like all health services they are so strapped for money that they have to save everywhere they can and with salaries about 75 per cent of hospital budgets they think that’s an obvious area to look at,” he said.
He said for most of its life Healesville Hospital had managed its own affairs.
“Eastern Health has enough to do without worrying about Healesville Hospital which would be better off treated and funded as a rural hospital, which is what it is.”
Mr Smith said the change addressed major inequities and the new model would make it easier for staff to move between sites and better utilise existing infrastructure.
“This means that if a doctor at Healesville Hospital is unable to attend a procedure, Eastern Health can utilise available doctors from other sites to provide the service.
“This contingency will ensure that we can continue to provide quality services at all our EH surgical sites under all circumstances,” he said.
He said the change would affect a number of senior medical staff but that most staff would notice little or no change.
Eastern Health declined to comment on questions asked by the Mail requesting comparative figures for the Healesville Hospital and their other sites saying only that “…waiting times vary depending on the severity of a patient’s condition, type of surgery required and demand on services.”
Save Healesville Hospital group has called a further public meeting for Wednesday, 27 March at 7pm at Healesville Memorial Hall.
